style="font-size:15px;"> I didn’t say anything to him as we got into his car, but he came up with the idea to take me to his apartment first, since it was near to where I lived. When we got into his apartment, I saw that it was surprisingly modest for someone as important as he apparently was. He offered me a drink and I asked for an Orange Crush, realizing too late any ambiguity about my age was now gone. He smiled and offered me a 7UP instead. Then he took out a joint that we shared while sitting on his couch.
As we became buzzed, he grabbed my hand and led me toward his bedroom. He undressed me slowly and I knew I wanted him. With each piece of clothing removed he told me how beautiful I looked and that I was like a goddess. Then he surprised me.
“Come here,” he said as he sat on the bed. “I just want to look at you.” He leaned back on his pillow and asked me to stand on the bed over him. At this point I was completely naked and ready to try sex. I stood over him and that was all he did. He looked at me and admired my body. He never laid a hand on me, even though I gave him every signal that I would be happy to have sex with him.
Then he told me he should take me home and that was that. He had me dress and he kissed me on my forehead. I was totally confused about what had happened but I figured “different strokes for different folks,” as the expression went. Even though it was a rejection, it didn’t feel that way at all. Rather, it was just confusing. Sex was all around me, but some people considered me too young for it, and others seemed to think I was already doing it. Once again, I was in that awkward teenage space—the sexual liberation of the sixties apparently wasn’t sure what to do with a teenage girl.
It wasn’t until my father put carpet on the floor of the converted bread truck—the final touch—thatg I fully understood the scope of his plan.
With the truck complete, my parents called us together and told us their news.
“We’ve decided to drop out,” my father explained.
I questioned the “we” part but bit my tongue, instead asking, “What does that mean?” I had never heard that expression before and didn’t know what my parents were talking about.
“Just as it sounds,” my mother continued, as if hearing it from her would soften the blow. “We’ve decided that we are going to drop out of society and live on our own. Other families will be coming along with us. That is why your dad has been working so hard on the bread truck. We are going to live in it.” I knew that was what my father had been planning for us to be able to live in the bread truck, but I didn’t think he meant permanently. In my mind, it would have been for vacations or trips.
The idea, as it became clear, was for several Oracle families to “drop out” with us. This was a way to live out their philosophies, not just talk about them. For us, though, it was more about a return to form for my father as he attempted to get out from under responsibility and societal expectations. The difference this time was that he had other people who would encourage and support his views without giving him a reality check. They were all gung ho about the idea that people could successfully drop out and that this action in itself would make a difference in society.
“What about school?” I asked.
“We should be ready to go by the end of August, so you won’t be going back to that idiot school,” my father replied.
This news landed hard. Even as our life had been turned upside down, school had been a constant for me. I was getting good grades and got the only A in my sewing class. I was making all my own clothing and having fun with my friends. While it was true that Jan and Joan had also stopped going regularly to school, this felt like a more definitive break. I wasn’t so sure about this plan, not to mention the fact that, once again, we were going to have to pare down our belongings to fit into a truck. Anything that didn’t fit would have to be sold or left behind.
I was upset, not just because they had decided all this without discussing it with me, but because it demonstrated just how little we spoke, period. This was especially pronounced with my mother. Our relationship was so much different than it had been a year ago—we hardly talked. Most of the time her conversation was with my father, and either they were arguing about the roles of women and men or she was nodding her head in agreement with his ideas. With my father, the times he and I did speak tended to involve his ruminating on one thing or another, with him doing most of the talking about his philosophical concepts and periodically asking me for my opinion. Still, we never talked about the things that mattered to me, and we certainly hadn’t talked about uprooting our lives all over again.
As I was struggling with the news, my brother had the opposite reaction, elated that he didn’t have to go to junior high in the fall. He would have hit the road that day if our things had been packed.
Kathy was similarly excited. “Whee!” she exclaimed. “Can I sleep on the top bunk?”
That afternoon I went to see Jan and Joan to tell them what was happening. The minute I got to their house, I started to cry. They both hugged me and sat me down on their couch.
“It is a good thing,” Jan said. “You should get out of here.” Jan and Joan hated school and thought my new life sounded like a great adventure. Even though they lived only with their mother, they didn’t understand how just living in the same place for more than a year would have been a luxury for me. As alternative as they thought their lives to be, they at least knew where they would be sleeping every night and who would be under their roof.
Joan stroked my hair as I cried into her sweater. “I know, let’s go to A Be & See and grab some guys to go to the beach,” she suggested. I wasn’t feeling very attractive or motivated to try out my inept efforts at flirtation, but they talked me into it.
A Be & See was a seedy little head shop where we were now regulars. It was owned by a gay couple named Del and Monty who had decorated the front with stained glass. I had status with Del and Monty because my father was doing silk screening for the Oracle. His artwork was becoming collectible by the local heads, who would remove the free black light posters found in the middle of the newspaper and tape them to their walls. Del and Monty let the local kids hang around and get high in the back room of their shop. The other regulars, some cute local boys from the Catholic school, got a kick out of it when I brought Kathy with me because she would bogart the joint until one of them ran around chasing her to get it back. We also showed them how she could give me a shotgun, which is when you hold the joint between your teeth and blow the smoke into someone else’s mouth.
When we got to A Be & See, some boys were there who had been hanging around with Jan and Joan. I wouldn’t say they were exactly dating, but they would get high together and hold hands on the beach. They grabbed the guys to go to the beach with us and asked them if they had a friend for me. I wasn’t in the mood but tried to be nice to the shy redhead they invited along. He seemed okay and I had nothing better to do. We walked to the beach to do one of our favorite things: get high and watch the surfers wipe out. There was an ongoing rivalry between the surfers and the heads. The surfers never touched marijuana because they said it wasn’t good for surfing and looked down on us for even sharing the beach. We thought they were total establishment and that they would be better off with a little bit of altered consciousness.
After a few hits, I was feeling better about the bombshell my parents had dropped. The pot was kicking in and I was feeling more relaxed. Jan, Joan, and their guys were sitting on the sand making out when the not-so-shy-after-all redhead took me by the hand and led me to the pier. It was late afternoon; the space underneath the pier was quiet, peaceful, and secluded. You could see, smell, and hear the ocean from that vantage point, but no one could see you. My body felt fuzzy with the pot and tingled when he touched me. I didn’t feel turned on, as I had with Kim. This
